Students’ Inductive Reasoning Skills and the Relevance of Prior Knowledge: An Exploratory Study With a Computer-Based Training Course on the Topic of Acne Vulgaris

Abstract

Background: The importance of inductive instruction in medical education is increasingly growing. Little is known about the relevance of prior knowledge regarding students’ inductive reasoning abilities. Purpose: The purpose is to evaluate this inductive teaching method as a means of fostering higher levels of learning and to explore how individual differences in prior knowledge (high [HPK] vs. low [LPK]) contribute to students’ inductive reasoning skills. Methods: Twenty-six LPK and 18 HPK students could train twice with an interactive computer-based training object to discover the underlying concept before doing the final comprehension check. Results: Students had a median of 76.9% of correct answers in the first, 90.9% in the second training, and answered 92% of the final assessment questions correctly. More important, 86% of all students succeeded with inductive learning, among them 83% of the HPK students and 89% of the LPK students. Conclusions: Prior knowledge did not predict performance on overall comprehension. This inductive instructional strategy fostered students’ deep approaches to learning in a time-effective way.